


Green-Eyed Monster

by Craftybadger1234



Series: Missing and odd moments: Seventh Year [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Hogwarts Seventh Year, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 17:57:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16289180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Craftybadger1234/pseuds/Craftybadger1234
Summary: Petunia is not jealous of Lily. Even if she has reason to be. Or maybe she is, but not for the reason we typically think.I tagged this seventh year because that's which book the quote came from. It doesn't actually take place during seventh year.





	Green-Eyed Monster

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to CleopatraIsMyName for looking this over for me! And also for the helpful information she supplied about British social/school systems. I loved my history lesson! :)
> 
> Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ch 33: _”You’re that Snape boy! They live down Spinner’s End by the river,” she told Lily, and it was evident from her tone that she considered the address a poor recommendation._
> 
> Thing is, the Evans and Snape families must live at least somewhat close together, which means the Evans family isn’t much better off than the Snape family. We all know Petunia is jealous of Lily. Perhaps it’s not just that Lily was a witch with special abilities, but also that she got a free ticket out of their poor part of town.

Petunia is the first to notice the odd things that happen around Lily. She sees the way Lily’s hairbrush seems to jump into her hand as though summoned. She sees the way Lily’s stewed cabbage shrinks to nearly nothing. She sees the way Lily’s broom collects dust with barely a sweep across the floor.

She sees and she’s not jealous. She doesn’t want to reach for things and have them run to her. She doesn’t want to waste food her parents worked so hard for. She doesn’t want her honest work done for her.

Petunia is not jealous when the witch comes from Lily’s special school to explain the special circumstances and the special education Lily is entitled to. Not even when her parents explain they don’t really have the money for such a school, and the witch explains about the scholarship.

Lily is showered with new clothes, new supplies, and a new pet owl. Petunia looks at her worn uniform, bought second hand the year before. She frowns at her books, already ragged and marked from the students that owned it before her. She sniffs in annoyance at the loud owl, wishing she had a cat to attack it.

She is not jealous when they take Lily to a special hidden railway track to get on a special hidden train to ride away to her special hidden school. And Petunia doesn’t care at all. Because she’ll get to stay at home and see their parents and live a life in the real world.

Petunia works hard at school. Students drop out at an alarming rate. To start families accidentally or on purpose. To work in the nearby factories. It’s a challenge but she stays focused on her lessons and graduates to a secretarial school. She finds herself a good job.

There she meets a young man with excellent prospects. And for once she thinks herself lucky. She knows she’s better off than so many of the other girls she went to school with. Her parents are happy for her and tell her Lily has also met a young man.

Petunia is not jealous, even if James Potter is not what she expects. He is better looking than Vernon, more polite than Vernon, and certainly wealthier than Vernon. Her parents are so impressed with James and his money and his posh manners that they barely speak to Petunia and Vernon all night. Petunia lets Vernon drive her home with tears burning in her eyes.

When Vernon proposes marriage, Petunia jumps at the chance. Her wedding is small and simple, unlike the vulgar display of wealth that was the Potter wedding. She is thrilled to move into her new home and even more excited when she finds she is pregnant just as Vernon is promoted. They move again into a modest home in an elegant neighborhood. 

She is thrilled to show off to her parents the flower garden and sparkling kitchen and _four_ bedrooms. She smiles shyly and explains that one will be a _nursery_.

Petunia is not jealous when all they can talk about is Lily’s spacious country house and the elf that does the chores and the suite of rooms for her new baby. As Petunia cries alone in her room, she blames it on the pregnancy when Vernon asks if she’s all right.

Her father dies in the spring, and her mother soon after. Lily cushioned their last months with the things money could buy, but it wasn’t enough. The funerals are hard on the sisters, both round with pregnancy and weary with it. Petunia mourns the life cut short by backbreaking, difficult work. Lily laments they were not wizarding kind, and the potions they could have taken if they were. 

Petunia gives birth in June to a round, squalling baby. It is difficult and exhausting and crippling. There is no way to fix her. This baby will be her _only_ baby. She stares into his pink, angry face and kisses his soft, splotchy cheek and promises he’ll never want for anything at all. He demands everything she has and she struggles to nourish him with her own milk. But it’s not enough and she has to surrender to the powdered formula she never wanted for her baby. She dries up and shrinks to nothing.

Petunia is not jealous when a few weeks after, a letter arrives from Lily with a strange, film-like photograph of a sleeping infant with jet black hair and skin as pale as milk. Lily is bright-eyed and fresh, smiling with her husband and son. She writes of potions and spells and a delivery that was over almost as soon as it started. She writes of his eager suckling and easy sleep. She writes of her dreams for three more just like Harry.

Petunia is not jealous. Her life is just what she worked hard for. She has a devoted husband, a nice house, and a precious child. What more could she want?

Certainly not the green-eyed little boy her sister left behind.


End file.
